herminpay

So I bought a 93 EX coupe that had "supposedly" a bad head gasket and needed a timing belt. After pulling the head, I realized that the person that owed the car never did any maintenance on it. The water pump had seized to the point that the timing belt snapped, and the oil was black, and the antifreeze was brown!! So after repairing all the issues, the car started right up and motor is healthy. Now the problems:

1. Transmission shifter, on the actual shifter and NOT ON THE CLUSTER, the number 1 light is on, no matter what gear I'm in.

2. The car doesn't seem to want to shift. I hit the gas, and it goes almost all the way to 6K RPM before it shifts to 2nd gear, I don't want to take it further than that because I'm afraid of more damage.

3. The speedometer don't work, it doesn't show mph, but the RPM and everything else is on point.

4. When I open the doors, the light for the trunk on the cluster comes on!!

I should say that in the process of removing the head, I broke the VtEC oil pressure switch connector, but I'll get a new one soon.
There are other little things here and there that are expected of a car this age, but the tranny issue is really bothering me and I'm hoping is something stupid and not another weekend lost to car repairs. Thanks for any help provided.

MisereNoire

hmm, let's see..
#1 - loose and/or broken shift position unit/pin inside the shifter assembly
#2 - same as above, you're likely stuck in 1st and it's automatically shifting into 2nd regardless of the lockout in 1st gear to keep the trans from killing itself OR your trans is trashed
#3 - bad VSS on the transmission/ bad wiring from/to the VSS (likely due to age or heat failure)
#4 - messed up wiring/ground crossing over and activating more than one trigger/switch (my civic doesnt have this indicator) my best guess.

so to sum it up, check out and fix/replace shifter assembly...and check the wiring to the VSS, if it looks good, get a new VSS. EDIT: this post may have an answer assuming yours is a retrofit cluster: https://honda-tech.com/forums/honda-civic-del-sol-1992-2000-1/%5Bdiy%5D-honda-civic-92-95-jdm-door-open-gauge-cluster-indicator-light-install-2714075/

Good luck.

Former User

What CEL codes are thrown? Which codes return after resetting the ECU?

After you properly adjust the shift and throttle cables, and fix the suspected VSS circuit issue, then do 3 ATF drain-refill cycles with some driving in between.

The cluster trunk light is grounding through the door switch rather than the trunk latch. Sounds like the previous owner experimented with some rewiring but didn't know what he was doing.

These should also help:

herminpay

Ok, thanks, I'll go downstairs and give this a try, it makes sense about the tranny thinking is on 1st gear because of the light being on...

Damanzi

I had an auto ex that behaved that way and it turned out the trans fluid was just filthy. I added/removed until the color of what i was taking out was like what iwas putting in and it started shifting fine.